William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling

by Cliff Cardinal

The title of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It holds a double meaning that teasingly suggests the play can please all tastes. But is that possible? With his subversive updating of the Bard’s classic, Indigenous creator and cultural provocateur Cliff Cardinal seeks to find out. The show exults in bawdy humour, difficult subject matter, and raw emotion; Cardinal is not one to hold back when it comes to challenging delicate sensibilities.

Genres: Plays, Indigenous, Theatre, Canada, Fiction, Drama

75 pages, Paperback

Published April 4, 2023

Reviews

[Alan (the Lone Librarian) Teder · Rating 5 out of 5]

February 26, 2025 Update There were recent performances of As You Like It: A Radical Retelling in Williamstown, NY which you can read about here.
p.s. I recently saw a performance of Cliff Cardinal's CBC Special which is not in print, but for which you can read a review on my Facebook here.


May 18, 2024 Update Cliff Cardinal takes The Land Acknowledgement or As You Like It to the Brighton Festival in the UK May 21-23, 2024. But will they understand what is going on? Tickets at the Brighton Festival here.


November 8, 2023 Update Winner of the Canadian 2023 Governor General's Literary Awards for Drama 🍁 as announced today.

The Land Acknowledgement
Review of the Playwrights Canada Press paperback edition (May 2023).

This is the show. The land acknowledgement is your show.
I lied to you.
I lied to you and took your money.
How's it feel?
Now you know what it's like to be Indian ... for a day.
If anyone feels duped and disrespected, the bard's sacred texts didn't ring out again tonight, by all means, you can walk out this door and you can get your money back.

The reveal for As You Like It: A Radical Retelling probably only worked on opening night when the play premiered at Crow's Theatre, Toronto in 2021. First night reviews let the cat out of the bag. This was not a one-man performance / adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy. It was instead a 90 minute Land Acknowledgement performed by author Cliff Cardinal in what could be described as a stand-up routine. It starts off pretty light, but gets quite dark by the end when Cardinal excoriates the government and churches who perpetuated the residential school system (1870-1997) in Canada which removed indigenous children from their parents and placed them in often abusive and even murderous environments with the aim of destroying their native culture.

I don't know how extensively Land Acknowledgements are made throughout the rest of the world, but in Canada it has become a preliminary fixture of all arts and theatrical performances, where the specific indigenous tribal nations and treaty lands related to the location of the performance are read out prior to the start. Cardinal spares no one in his assessments and questions the sincerity of much of what has often become a token speech which is rushed through.

When the play was restaged in early 2023 by Mirvish Theatres in Toronto, the promotional material openly acknowledged the real theme of the evening.


Promotional poster for the May 2023 restaging of “As You Like It: A Radical Retelling”. Image sourced from Mirvish Theatres.

I wanted to read As You Like It: A Radical Retelling as I was curious about how much of the seemingly improvised banter by Cliff Cardinal was scripted. It was actually quite a surprising amount, aside from the occasional interaction he had with audience members which was obviously spontaneous.

It is hard for me to separate the rating for the playscript from the performance that I saw. This was a thoughtful and provocative theatrical experience which hopefully will have additional revivals in the future.

Trivia and Link
Cliff Cardinal is interviewed and some brief excerpts from his performance of "The Land Acknowledgement" monologue can be seen at this YouTube video here.

[max theodore · Rating 5 out of 5]

not sure there is anything i can say about this one that doesn't give the game away, or that can describe it anyway. it is sharp and ruthless and emotional and genuine and going to live in my head forever how about that

[Sam Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saw this performed by Cliff himself on September 28th, 2024 at the Cultch Theatre in Vancouver.

I won’t risk spoiling this absolute masterpiece by saying anything other than this is maybe the greatest piece of performance art I’ve ever seen performed live. An unbelievably intelligent, transgressive, critical, and urgent soliloquy on truth, justice, identity, and reconciliation. I laughed and I cried. Outstanding performance and an outstanding read as well.

[Rachel Ashera Rosen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before the play begins, an actor comes out to read the land acknowledgment. Usually, these are brief, perfunctory, and vague; a performative gesture to make white people feel like they're Doing Something Important. But there's something different about this one. It doesn't end. In fact, there's no play at all, just a searing attack on colonialism, state violence, and Canada's unwillingness to confront the legacy of residential schools.

I sadly did not get to see the famous performance where the audience didn't know what was coming, so I went into reading the play spoiled. I saw Cliff Cardinal do another show a few weeks ago though, and he's absolutely brilliant.

[Haiden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always here for a good retelling, especially when it takes you by surprise

[kanzad · Rating 5 out of 5]

a short play
was actually very good and made some good points

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely incendiary, funny, enraging, difficult, and bold as fuck. I also found it deeply moving.

[Not Sarah Connor Writes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really wish I could write a full length review that fully encapsulates what it is I want to say about Cliff Cardinals As You Like It, A Radical Retelling, but it's impossible here. This is a play that needs to be experienced by the individual, preferably live but reading it was just as amazing an experience. Please read this play, you won't regret it!

Thanks to Playwrights Canada Press for sending me this play in exchange for an honest review!

[Karan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Has the same impact as the performance. Puts words to much of the discomfort I'm feeling about land acknowledgements these days. Thanks for the copy Alan!

[Sally Elhennawy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a moment in time to have gotten to witness the precision, hilarity, and sheer intelligence of this performance. I am looking forward to returning to the script time and again, and to get to keep staying with Cliff Cardinal’s words. This is a book I will be lending out like it’s my life’s work to do so, because absolutely everyone should read it, so hit me up!!

[Marie Trotter · Rating 3 out of 5]

the content does not live up to the provocation of the concept, which is excellent

[Sarah-Erna Bertrand]

Loved It!

[Nadia Mageau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant

[Annie MacKillican · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know how far theatre gets without the oil industry?

The Winnipeg Fringe.

Always a thrill to relive the absolute joy I experienced sitting in a theatre full of rich Mirvish theatregoers wondering what the fuck they were experiencing.

[ashes ➷ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Absolutely genius. Clever, funny, certainly impactful and emotional and at times righteously angry and painful and poignant but more everything else I think it really felt good to see how much fun Cardinal so obviously had writing this and it felt gratifying to feel that he was gratified in writing and producing it; this felt cathartic for him and that comes through in every extraordinarily carefully chosen word. Yes, this is a great take on everything that people expect to see when they come to see As You Like It-- and please for the love of God don't let people (or reviews or press coverage) spoil this for you; read it for an adaptation of As You Like It, I wish I'd done that without being spoiled-- but it is also an emotionally expansive, glorious ode to taking the piss and making a bag off of it.

I want to see more marginalized people doing this, I want to see more marginalized people making money from it, I want more marginalized people to get a shot to send a message doing what they love in a unique and capricious and totally uncompromising way; in so many ways it was just good to know this sort of thing is out there and well-received.

[Karley · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my biggest theatre regrets is not seeing this show when it premiered at crow’s in toronto. cliff cardinal is one of my favourite playwrights, though this is only his third published play—i saw huff in my first (or second, hard to remember) year of university and it still rocks me to my core when i think about it years later. i bought a copy as soon as i walked out of the theatre that day. i will be buying a physical copy of this one as soon as i can.

his writing is so cutting, so unabashedly forward and intentional, so soaked with layers of emotion under a hard coating of suppression. i can’t think of anyone that writes like him. this play is definitely one that should be seen and heard rather than read, similarly to shakespeare’s plays, but that being said i was still in tears by the end because i could *feel* cliff’s voice in the words. i need to reread huff now

[Beth Bauman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant and heartbreaking. What Cliff Cardinal can do with a monologue is a powerful thing - makes us (rightly) uncomfortable and sad and almost helpless with the furry and the injustice of the world, and yet NOT helpless, because he gives us solutions and suggestions.

I hope some of these Indigenous storytelling classes or Indigenous history classes or Canadian lit classes pick this up in future years. There is a lot to process and go through, with a really interesting narrative structure.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some plays are good to read, but don't work in practice; some great plays do not make good reading. I found this script really entertaining to read, but I believe it also makes a great play. Cliff Cardinal is ruthless, but he is also a master of comic timing. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a while.

[Jo Snowing · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw this performed on my 49th birthday last year in Toronto and it has really stayed with me. I just realized I could purchase a copy and so I did. This is a piece for everyone, but especially for a colonized mind… which is (shamefully but admittedly), most of us. Cliff, if you read this… please perform this again.

[Jadyn Kavanagh · Rating 1 out of 5]

at the very end, the actor says “don’t tell anyone, as they’re all expecting to see shakespeare”

i’m not sure what i was expecting, but this felt like a gen-z tried to write a, for lack of a better word, “woke” land acknowledgement

it just went on and on and on

96 pages was, unfortunately, too long

[Eden · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
A quick read I did in a day. It was quite engaging, and without spoiling too much--surprised me in a way a book has never done to me before. I credit the authour for being able to write something so vivid to picture, even though the whole thing is just talking to an audience.

Thought provoking, funny, and new, all done in a quick 100 pages.

[Another Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saw this live and then read the play after. Cried, laughed, felt uncomfortable, and angry at our world. Cliff is smart and honest, both on stage and the page, and seeing him do it live is wonderful. This play should be read in every Canadian drama class.

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also saw the production at Crow's Theatre in October 2021.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just eye opening. Truth

[My N · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was unexpected. I started the text with a belief and was surprised how Cardinal smashed those expectations to fragments. It made me uncomfortable and I'm still processing this text.

[Emily Springer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Indescribable - an absolute must read.

[Stu Milde · Rating 5 out of 5]

an excellent acknowledgment to the land

[Dylan Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful, tragic, deeply engaging, wonderful, humbling, hilarious, ART! seeing this live next week i could not be more excited

[Abbey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hope I can see this performed in person one day

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

A massively amazing retelling of As You Like It. But Cardinal asks us not to explain how he's reworked it, and I want to respect that. But definitely read or see this play if you can.